DishNet goes to 1080i Turbo HD
By Leslie Poston
The big announcement recently in the satellite television space was DishNetwork’s new “TurboHD” service. Claiming to be the first satellite service that is 100% High Definition (HD), TurboHD rolled out on August 1st of this year.
When I see 100% of something, I presume the company means it. In the case of DishNetwork, they mean only a select few HD channels (24 at time of press). That annoyed me about the press release, especially as a DishNetwork customer.
On the plus side, since I am a DishNetwork customer, upgrading to the new service (should I choose to do so) will be painless. It involves a simple download to my DishNetwork HD set top box. The download brings the full HD capability to the set top box, but more importantly it can upgrade applicable movies and television shows for you to the higher quality 1080i.
Not only is the TurboHD faster and benefiting from the upgrade function, it offers up to 40 channels. These channels are the first concrete evidence of DishNetwork’s concern for its bandwidth. In another strike against DishNetwork the TurboHD era is also the time for tiered pricing. You must choose between three packages, all of which offer a limited number of HD channels.
The announcement did not address whether there are billing or customer service hoops existing customers must jump through to get special TurboHD pricing or to adjust their current set top box. I’m sure the $10 fee DishNetwork charges each month just for the dubious privilege will have most people reeling, even though it’s a fee they have been charging for quite some time.
I’ve got an HD package, though not a TurboHD package. It works fine for me as it is, but I see in the announcement for the new service that there are some people who found themselves switched without their knowledge. At this point we only have a month or two left on our DishNetwork contract. That means if they can’t get their act together on some of these questions, I could move along to a different provider without penalty. I know some who are already counting the days til they can do so.
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on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
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Read more entries by Leslie Poston.
Stumble It!
August 8th, 2008
You might want to double check you facts on what TurboHD really means.
August 8th, 2008
As far as I can tell it doesn’t mean anything – just a marketing gimmick. Feel free to let me know if it is more substantial than a marketing ploy.
August 8th, 2008
Dish network has offered programming in 1080i and 720p for a couple years now. The turbo HD is going to be a firmware update that allows your box to accept and display 1080p content, which is 100% HD. Only the dish network VOD service will be 1080p. Yes, most of us are automatically updated, but the pricing made my bill cheaper. The different package schemes are aimed at those that want just the HD channels and not the standard channels. For us already with dish and have HD, it doesn’t effect us much. Mostly a free upgrade.